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All aquatic amniotes (reptiles, birds and mammals) have thick and impermeable cutes that preclude cutaneous respiration, and thus rely solely on the lungs to breathe air. When underwater, the animal is essentially holding its breath and has to routinely return to the surface to breathe in new air.
Some freshwater pulmonates keep a bubble of air inside the shell, which helps them to float. [1] Many of the very small freshwater limpets which live in cold water have lost the ability to breathe air, and instead flood their mantle cavity with water. [1] Oxygen diffuses from the water to the snail's body directly. [1]
Aquatic animals generally conduct gas exchange in water by extracting dissolved oxygen via specialised respiratory organs called gills, through the skin or across enteral mucosae, although some are evolved from terrestrial ancestors that re-adapted to aquatic environments (e.g. marine reptiles and marine mammals), in which case they actually ...
The physiology of underwater diving is the physiological adaptations to diving of air-breathing vertebrates that have returned to the ocean from terrestrial lineages. They are a diverse group that include sea snakes, sea turtles, the marine iguana, saltwater crocodiles, penguins, pinnipeds, cetaceans, sea otters, manatees and dugongs.
In cetology, the study of whales and other cetaceans, a blowhole is the hole (or spiracle) at the top of the head through which the animal breathes air. In baleen whales , these are in pairs. It is homologous with the nostril of other mammals , and evolved via gradual movement of the nostrils to the top of the head. [ 1 ]
Turtles, like other reptiles, breathe air, not water. They have lungs, not gills like fish, and so even if they live mostly in the water, they need to come up to the surface to breathe now and again.
Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment. Only about 100 of the 12,000 extant reptile species and subspecies are classed as marine reptiles, including marine iguanas , sea snakes , sea turtles and saltwater crocodiles .
Reptiles are astonishingly diverse, with extraordinary adaptations such as a tiny lizard in Costa Rica that has evolved a way to “scuba dive,” according to new research. Fantastic creatures